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Biggest Lie

Obama: His Mother's Preexisting-Condition Anecdote Some might say President Obama's promise to close Guantanamo or veto any health-care bill without a public option would qualify for this undistinguished honor, but the winner is Obama’s frequently repeated campaign claim that his mother died because an insurance company deemed her cancer a preexisting condition and so would not cover her. “I will never forget my own mother, as she fought cancer in her final months, having to worry about whether her insurance would refuse to pay for her treatment," Obama said in a town-hall meeting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in August 2009. In fact, as revealed by Janny Scott’s biography of Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, she had full coverage for her disease. Scott quotes from Ann's correspondence to prove that, in fact, the battle with her insurer, Cigna, was over disability payments for her out-of-pocket expenses. Most of her medical expenses were paid without argument. The White House never did challenge Scott's account, though a spokesman did his best to salvage the president's original point, saying, "[T]his personal history of the president's speaks powerfully to the impact of pre-existing condition limits on insurance protection from health care costs." Except for one teensy point: Disability insurance was never at issue in the Affordable Care Act.